The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution to allow UN staff to monitor the evacuations in eastern Aleppo, where thousands of people remain trapped in harsh winter conditions.

The draft resolution was the result of a compromise between Russia and France.

The operation to bring thousands of people out of the last rebel-held enclave of Aleppo resumed Monday after being held up for several days, together with the evacuation of two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province.

Convoys of buses from eastern Aleppo reached rebel-held areas of countryside to the west of the city, according to a UN official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. At the same time, 10 buses left the Shia Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, north of Idlib, for government lines in Aleppo, the sources said.

The evacuation of civilians, including wounded people, from the two villages had been demanded by the Syrian army and its allies before they would allow fighters and civilians trapped in Aleppo to depart.?

The standoff halted the Aleppo evacuation over the weekend.

“First limited evacuations, finally, tonight from east Aleppo and Foua & Kefraya. Many thousands more are waiting to be evacuated soon,” Jan Egeland, who chairs the United Nations aid task force in Syria, tweeted late on Sunday night.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a total of 20,000 civilians had been evacuated from Aleppo, including 4,500 since midnight on Sunday.

The United Nations said nearly 50 children, some critically injured, were rescued from eastern Aleppo, where they had been trapped in an orphanage.

Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement that all 47 children trapped were taken to safety, “with some in critical condition from injuries and dehydration.”

Ahmad al-Dbis, a medical aid worker heading a team evacuating patients from Aleppo, said 89 buses had left the city.

“Some evacuees told us that a few children died from the long wait and the intense cold while they were waiting to evacuate,” he told Reuters.

Syrian state TV and pro-Damascus stations showed the first four buses arriving in Aleppo from the besieged villages, accompanied by pick-up trucks and with people sitting on their roofs.–Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution to allow UN staff to monitor the evacuations in eastern Aleppo, where thousands of people remain trapped in harsh winter conditions. The draft resolution was the result of a compromise between Russia and France. The operation to bring thousands...